A picture is worth a thousand words- this is the motto of a photojournalist. It is their objective to produce, direct truthful and bold images that tell the story for those who have no voice.
All India Working News Cameramen's Association (WNCA), the largest national body of print and electronic visual media organised 5th bi-annual photo exhibition - The Big Picture 2018-19.
General Secretary of the WNCA and curator Sondeep Shankar said "we made this association long time back in 1978. I came into running of this thing in 2009. For us it was like a creative outburst. So I thought why don't we bring pictures to the gallery wall. We organised our first show in Aug 2010. We approached Lalit Kala for the show. and there were some 220 pictures at that time.”
This year 68 photographers took part in this exhibition. With 296 photographs it was quite a challenge for Sondeep to give a direction to the exhibition.
Different sections were coverd in this exihibition from science to nature to the polluted Yamuna. The Big Picture is the collective work of its members. Although the basic assignments of participants have centered on news events- the lifeblood of the media they work for.
Talking about his photographs, Abhisek Saha said "Bamboo is the most important non-wood forest product and in India is known as the 'poor man's timber'. A vast population of mainly tribals in the northeastern region of India depend on bamboo cultivation and trading to earn a living.”
These photographs are moments in life capturing fleeting moments. To shoot a candid picture, outside the realm of photojournalist assigned field, as the masters of photographer Henri Cartier Bresson called it, is nothing but a reflex action.
“Vajpayee was in the Lok Sabha for a trust vote. He had taken oath as prime minister just 13 days earlier, after Bharatiya Janata Party emerged as the single-largest party in the general elections. But the BJP, with its 161 MP's, was short of the halfway mark of 272. Still, then President Shankar Dayal Sharma invited Vajpayee to form the government and gave him two weeks to cobble together the support of enough number of MPs. This sequence of photographs show Vajpayee coming out of Parliament to submit his resignation to the President. Vajpayee served as PM three times.” Kamal Narang said, descibing his photographs.
